[Rarebooks] FS: Fine framed Langston Hughes letter on performing Shakespeare: a "swell jive Hamlet"

[Charles Agvent]

 From our recent Spring Catalogue.  All of the items can be seen here: 
http://www.erols.com/agvent

HUGHES,  Langston. TYPED LETTER SIGNED (TLS) about a Black Performance
of  Shakespeare:  "swell  jive  Hamlet".   Hollywood:  26  Nov.  1940.
Wonderful  letter  on  Hollywood Theatre Alliance  letterhead  to  Dan
Burley,  an accomplished musician and theater critic for the NEW  YORK
AMSTERDAM  NEWS who recorded with Lionel Hampton and is the author  of
DAN  BURLEY'S ORIGINAL HANDBOOK OF HARLEM JIVE. In large part: "Here I
am  down here helping to edit and arrange the Negro show that I  wrote
you  about. Your swell jive Hamlet was received and very well liked by
the  committee--but  you  know  show business.  At  the  moment  their
feeling  is  that a Hollywood audience wouldn't understand  jive  well
enough  to  really get it--unless it were accompanied  by  explanatory
action--which  is impossible to devise for the soliloquy. The  feeling
is  now  that if we just had the bed-room scene from OTHELLO done  the
same  way--the business about my love come to bed, etc., and where  is
the  handkerchief?--that  it could then be acted out. In  other  words
jive  in action--which would explain it for the uninitiated. And  with
a  good  comedian in Shakesperian costume ought to be  very  funny....
They  have some pretty swell stuff for the show, music by Otis  Renee,
Elliott  Carpenter,  Will Grant Still among the Negro  composers,  and
several  white boys." Matted and framed in gray, red, and gilt, with a
photograph,  under  ultra-violet filtering plexi-glass #5. The  letter
is  8-1/8"  x 10"; the photograph is 4-5/8" x 6-3/4".  Overall  framed
dimensions  are  20"  x  16-1/2". Near  Fine,  professionally  framed.
                                                               $1500.00
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CHARLES AGVENT
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Mertztown, PA  19539-8750
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agvent at erols.com
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